Kevin Avery Reads from Everything Is an Afterthought

In 2005, author Kevin Avery wrote to Paul Nelson—the legendary Rolling Stone rock critic and Village Voice contributor who, at that point, had retreated from journalism to work at a video store in New York City—asking for his cooperation with a biography, only to hear radio silence in return. After Nelson’s death in 2006, Avery learned that the rock recluse had, in fact, received his note, and he immediately began research for his colorful new anthology, Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson (Fantagraphics Books), discovering half a dozen notes in* Nelson’s apartment that read, “Kevin Avery. The book guy. Get his phone *number. Meet him.” Here, Avery recounts Nelson’s pivotal experience at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, when Dylan—and the former folk scholar—went electric.